Lake Malawi workcamp

Baobab trees on the way up (near Mangochi)


Everyone rushed to the beach on arrival - for many it was their first time at a beach


baboons raiding a bin


rachel having breakfast with baboons


the graves of early missionaries (died of malaria mostly)


looking down from the hill to Chembe village and the lake - the scars on the landscape from the villagers activities are all too obvious from the hill


the group receiving a park induction and background info from the Park Manager - a nice bloke (this time...see earlier blog about our other trip to Cape Maclear!)


Rachel running an introduction to workcamps session on the beach...because she can!


a chicken for the pot


one of the park staff telling the group about cichlids at Otter Point


some of the group at Otter Point


drink it in...


an impromptu singing session (in chichewa). The group had made up a song about how important the environment is. (Chilengedwe something something chokoma...i was just on 'oooh's for the bass line you will be pleased (not to) hear!).


on the cold road to Mangochi...if I was cold, the locals in just t-shirts must've been really freezing! maybe that's why they pile so many people in, for body heat...

Last Saturday, 3rd July (happy birthday Sal!), Rach and I began one of the most significant and enjoyable aspects of our work here – we were organising an international youth ‘workcamp’ at the World Heritage site of Lake Malawi National Park. Around 25 World Heritage sites globally hosted workcamps this year, and Rachel was in charge of ensuring the Lake Malawi one ran smoothly, whereas I was along to provide some environmental information and training. The camp’s purpose was to gather together young people from different countries (we had Malawians and South Koreans – we would have had Zambians too but their passports were out of date so they could not leave the country!), and to use this international band of yooofs to speak to the people living and working within the park about the importance of World Heritage sites, and this site in particular.

Lake Malawi National Park (LMNP) is a World Heritage site because a group of fish called Cichlids (pronounced sick-lids) have evolved there in isolation into over 350 different species (in a similar way to the Galapagos finches) which are unique and endemic to the lake. The status was also awarded because of it’s outstanding natural beauty (which I think is a bit of a weaker point, although it is very beautiful). The cichlids require the clean freshwater of the lake for their survival and so many activities undertaken by villagers on the land can adversely affect them. The protection of the fish from hunting is enshrined in law, (we saw some offenders being brought in by the park staff for offenses such as tree felling and fishing within 100m of the shore) but it is far better to have the residents taking responsible actions because they understand the importance and want to, rather than just because they don’t want to be caught and fined.

So our group of intrepid young people are, as we speak, out there engaging with various groups from the 5 villages in the park’s area and hopefully inspiring them to positive actions for the ecosystem. They will encounter many cultural difficulties;
• Why should the villagers care if the ecosystem is destroyed and the park loses its World Heritage status? Most tourists don’t necessarily visit the lake because of the World Heritage status, or even the fish, but because it is beautiful.
• What benefit does the LMNP hold for them? All it does is tell them what not to do, they do not gain anything from it.
• What benefit do World Heritage sites in general have to a population which in some cases is verging on subsistence and will never leave the country to see any other W.H. sites?
I hope we have provided the group with at least some responses they can use in some of these situations. The LMNP staff themselves have an ‘outreach’ team, but like all things Malawian it is underfunded, understaffed, and inefficient (and possibly ineffective). The work of the ‘workcampers’ is to try to nurture a better understanding of why the park staff are always telling the villagers what to do, and what they do actually (imperceptibly) gain from the presence of the park and it’s status as a W.H. site.

I, and some representatives from the park, did a couple of days training on the environmental facts and figures, before Rachel and I provided a day’s training on communication skills. Now many of you may be sniggering about me giving communication skills training, but I kid you not – just by being educated in the UK you will have had more formal and informal training on public speaking, critical thought, appropriate debating techniques, and a raft of other ‘soft skills’ than most Malawians will ever receive – it never fails to surprise us the inadequacies of Malawian education in producing intelligent individuals, rather than just individuals who know facts.

And Rachel…well Rachel made it all happen!

So that’s the facts, and here are the opinions:
• Traveling up on Saturday was faff-tastic, but we got there eventually, having given a lift to the grandmother of one of the AYISE staff…and also to her chicken which we were unaware of until a bag fell onto her pile of stuff and it squawked!
• Malawi time is ingrained in Malawians, they cannot do anything even vaguely on time (unless there is something in it for them, such as finishing on time so they can go shopping/play football etc)
• Gender inequality is also ingrained in Malawians, domestic tasks are predominantly done by the females – even when blokes are involved in, say preparing a meal, the females do most of the work
• Malawians love to sing and act – they chose to do a drama in order to portray some of their messages to the villagers and, despite sometimes doing a good impression of a brick wall when we tried to engage them in lively debate in the classroom, they were definitely not holding back in their acting!
• We ate loads. Ridiculous amounts each night, largely carbs (nsima, rice or potatoes) because they are so used to eating loads of dirt-cheap nsima which is highly filling, and walking away totally stuffed, that when they eat other foods they also require huge amounts. But only a tiny wee bit of some (largely tomato based) sauce
• We ate chicken which was bought live and cooked from scratch
• We ate cat fish – delicious, although some Malawians didn’t like it
• Rach and I managed to escape for a couple of hours most evenings to head into town for a beer to calm our frustrations at trying to get this group (of lovely, well meaning individuals) to do anything at all vaguely to schedule
• In town we played bongo-type drums on the beach at a reggae bar, hanging out with the barman and his 10 year old (and very cheeky) son
• We saw lovely sunsets almost every night
• The accommodation, within the national park, is surrounded by very tame baboons and monkeys who are disappointingly eating mainly from the unsecured bins, or even straight from your plate if you are not careful. Rach and I lost a bunch of bananas to a very happy looking monkey who ran into our room while I was in there with my back turned
• We had a couple of nice walks, along to Otter Point (no otters anymore, nothing left for them to eat), and up the hill behind the site

Leaving the camp was a bit of a story…we had been told there would be a minibus around 5 in the morning, however while we were in town at the bar Rachel heard that the minibus was broken down and so we arranged to get picked up by a matola. Matolas are basically any vehicle which you can cram people into, largely pickup trucks or small lorries. The guys at the bar arranged for the matola man to pick us up at 5.30. Last time we were leaving the lake our lift arrived early, so we set our alarm for 4.55. At 4.40 we heard the matola (unmistakable with its music blaring) and luckily this woke Rachel who ran out and spoke to him. He said he’d be back in 20 mins. Perfect. So we hurriedly packed up and were ready in under 20 mins…1 hour later we were picked up! The matola (a small flat-bed lorry) then drove around the rest of the village getting more and more ridiculously full before heading off when I think we literally could not have had anyone else in there. I had an ok position, standing up front behind the cab, with a decent hand hold. Rachel had a very safe position on the floor in the middle. Once our bones had been rattled for around 25km we arrived at the main tarmac road at Monkey Bay. Here we hoped to get a minibus, but unfortunately there were none, so we jumped in another matola (which Rachel expertly haggled down to local price!) for the 56km to Mangochi. The ride was uncomfortable and cold (as mentioned MANY times before, Malawians do not do customer service – quality is not an option) and ran out of fuel repeatedly as they were too tight to actually properly fill it up at any one time. On the plus side, we met a lovely bloke called Moses who had worked with AYISE before and helped us to get a good minibus at a good price from Mangochi straight to Limbe, and we were back in AYISE shortly after lunchtime (having been on the go for over 9 hours).

The whole week was really rewarding as, for once, we could actually appreciate the benefits of our actions (an example being that one of the camp leaders suffered a close family bereavement on the Sunday, but chose to stay up at the camp rather than head home as the camp and all the skills she could get from it meant so much to her). There were frustrations, there always will be, but we were autonomous enough to be able to address most of them reasonably swiftly, unlike our office work where we often have our hands tied and enforced delays. The sunsets helped a lot too!

Next blog: Mulanje Porters Race!